From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 02:12:05 +0200 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Ozgurluk] WP: Turkeys talks with Chechen terrorists but not with Hungerstrikers Out of Sight, Death Stalks Turkey's Hunger Strikers John Ward Anderson Washington Post Service Thursday, May 3, 2001 Fasting Women Resolved to Get Prison Reform ISTANBUL The home where Fatma Sener carries on her hunger strike has become a grim ward of death. Three women have starved to death here in the last three weeks protesting conditions in Turkey's prisons, bringing to 20 the number who have died since March. Inside the modest house in a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul, activists helped one of the weakest hunger strikers shuffle to the bathroom. She is Zehra Kulaksiz, 22, whose 19-year-old sister, Canan, died two weeks ago. Afterward, three women gently massaged her hands and feet as she curled on a bed. Sympathizers have brought flowers for a small shrine in the hall. Posters proclaim: "Either life with pride or death" and "Heroes don't die and people don't get beaten." "This is not a suicide," said Miss Sener, 22, who marked the 169th day of her hunger strike Tuesday. "We are death-fasting in order to help others live. But this is about death, and it can take time. For us, victory is close, and so is death." The 20 people in Turkey who have starved themselves to death in the last five weeks were part of an increasingly gruesome campaign to highlight, and, they hope, to change, what critics say is Turkey's shameful prison system, particularly that system's policy of holding political prisoners in isolation. International human rights organizations say the practice of isolation is inhumane and often leads to abuse of prisoners by guards. Sixteen of the dead have been inmates, and four, including the three who died in Miss Sener's house, were activists fasting in solidarity with them. From 200 to 400 inmates and six activists are participating in the so-called death fast. The independent organization Human Rights Watch said last week that about 60 prisoners were facing imminent death. Away from the prisons, Miss Sener said, the activists "decided to show people what it looks like to die cell by cell, but outside the prison." Like the others, Miss Sener drinks water mixed with salt, sugar or powdered juice to maintain her strength and to hold death at bay. A clear picture of what is happening in Turkey's continuing prison crisis, now entering its sixth month, is difficult to grasp, because the hunger strike is mostly taking place inside prisons, away from public view. But the turmoil is galvanizing domestic and international human rights activists, who cite Turkey's poor prison record as a reason that it is not ready to join the European Union. Political analysts say the hunger strike is a low priority for a government that is fighting for political survival during Turkey's severe economic crisis. Turkish authorities say that the hunger strikers belong to terrorist groups and that the state will not bargain with them, a position that is coming under increasing criticism as the death toll climbs. The toll surpasses that of a 1996 hunger strike by Turkish prisoners that claimed 12 lives; it is twice the number of Irish Republican Army supporters who died in a Belfast prison during a hunger strike in 1981. Even the duration of the hunger strike is creating some controversy, with medical authorities saying it is impossible for people to live so long without food and noting that, in most mass hunger strikes, people begin to die after about 65 days. But whatever the explanation, there is no dispute that, since the first death March 21, participants in the fast have bee that more deaths are expected. The fasters began their hunger strikes at different times, some as long ago as Oct. 20. While many are approaching death, others apparently ae several weeks or months behind. After Turkish policemen stormed 20 prisons in December - a fourday operation code-named Return to Life that left 30 inmates and two officers dead - there were conflicting reports that the hunger strikers had been force-fed. Others were isolated in hospitals and gave up their fasts after being told that they were the only ones continuing the strike, doctors said. The December police action was designed to wrest control of Turkey's prison system from radical leftist groups that ran dormitor prisons like ideological indoctrination camps. Guards were not allowed inside. After the police retook the facals transferred about 1,000 inmates to new prisons designed to isolate inmates. Mr. Sari, who was freed last year after being imprisoned 21 months for supporting a terrorist organization, accused the government of hypocrisy. Authorities negotiated last month with a group of Chechen terrorists who took over a five-star hotel in Istanbul, he sad, but "with the prisoners, there's no contact, suggesting they are trying to eliminate them and take revenge." The strikers' main demand now seems to be abolition of a law mandating that political prisoners be held in isolation. In an interview Nov. 17, Justice Minister Turk promised that and numerous other legal and penal reforms; none have -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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